


Ghosts

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ficlet. I seem to be in ficlet mood, lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't steal, I re-imagine.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: You betcha! For Benediction, but this takes place dab-smack-in-the-middle of Ground State

Looking in at life from the outside is. . . weird.   
  
There was a time when we were  _both_  out in it, both a part of it. Even when I was at my brooding, self-pitying worst, even when he was an obedient momma’s-boy, we were in the thick of it. Of life.   
  
Things are a bit different, now. We can watch the world, but not impact or change it.  
  
We can’t  _touch_  it and we miss that most of all.  
  
The absolute worst was watching the girl we’d both had romantic leanings towards suffer from the curse  _I’d_  unwittingly passed on to her and being unable to put an arm around her. . . .  
  
Yeah, it didn’t sit particularly well with me or him, let's just say (though seeing her and Groo - _komshock_  - was an extremely close second on the awful-o-meter).  
  
And now that she’s up and disappeared, I feel -  
  
“Damnit, Dennis! She’s not coming back!”  
  
\- pulled back into the present by Fred's little Mount St. Helen routine. So much for my rambling internal-monologue.  
  
“She’s wrong.” Dennis is watching Fred fall all over herself apologizing to Angel and Gunn. “Say she’s wrong.”  
  
He and Fred share the same look of helpless misery. Sadly, I can only take care of one of them.  
  
“Dennis." I lay a hand on his arm. It’s wild, y’know? How warm and solid and  _alive_  he feels to me. How  _real_.  
  
“What the hell happened to her, Francis? Where’d she  _go_?”  
  
That's the same thing we’ve been asking each other for three months, now.  
  
“I dunno, Dennis. What I do know -” ain’t much, I’ll tell ya. Can’t let on, though. He needs me to be strong for him and. . . it’s damn nice to be needed again.   
  
I step into his personal space and he automatically wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer. “What I do know is that wherever she is, if anyone can find her,  _help_  her, it’s Angel. He helps the helpless. Least that’s what it says on the business cards.”  
  
“Sounds like he’s been pretty helpless, himself,” Dennis notes, frowning.  
  
We hold onto each other and watch what’s left of Angel Investigations pack up and file out of the apartment with boxes of Cordy’s things. I can’t help sneaking peeks at Dennis’s familiar, unhappy face the whole time.  
  
“It’ll be okay,” I say when the front door eventually snicks shut with a sound like finality.  
  
Dennis looks down at me. The limp excuse for a smile he manages is strained and about as real as a nine-dollar bill, but he’s trying. For me.  
  
“You’re right. Of course you are.”  
  
“Belaboring the obvious, there, aren’tcha?” I grin. It’s the classic, Francis Doyle, it’s-gonna-be-okay grin. Dennis responds to it immediately, returns it and leans closer, staring into my eyes as if he’s searching for something.  
  
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Francis.” His hands settling on my waist feels like comfort. Like  _home_. The sudden flood of affection I feel for him’d take my breath away. If I had any breath, that is.  
  
“Same here.” I wind my arms around his neck and hug him as close to myself as I can, afraid of losing him, of losing the only warmth, the only  _touch_  I have left. “Now hush, love.”  
  
I don’t know if it is. Love, I mean. But we can touch each other, and that’s the closest to life either of us have been since - well,  _being alive_. If  _close-to_  is all two ghosts like us get, then I’ll hang onto him, alright. With both arms.  
  
When our lips finally meet, the kiss is bright and keen, like electricity. Like oranges. Like touch.


End file.
